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Though the first Terminator game was a low-fi adventure built for early PCs, the Nintendo faithful enjoyed one of the earliest console appearances of James Cameron's early success. Well, perhaps 'enjoyed' is too strong a word. To a one, pervious games based on the films have been less than stellar, and the trend has continued to the present day. Since Atari (OK, Infogrames) took over the license, things have changed little. But Terminator 3: The Redemption is a little different. This time, the game is better at capturing that old Arnie magic, even if the gameplay is as limited as the actor's vocabulary.

Back to the Future

Terminator 3: The Redemption is a straightforward arcade shooter, and if you don't like rails, look elsewhere. The plot generally follows the recent film, with some missions as playable backstory and a few surprises. Make no mistake, the gameplay is as narrow as the story -- beyond frantically shooting everything in sight, there's not much to do. If we were talking about a game based on Shakespeare, that might be a much bigger problem. But this is The Terminator, after all. What do you expect?

Players are blessed with the alloy skull and indomitable vocabulary of the classic T-whatever. In other words, Arnold. Movement through levels comes in two flavors: walking and chasing, with some railed shooting thrown in. On foot, there's always at least one weapon at hand, and players often have the chance to grab a second rifle for some two-fisted fun. In addition, basic hand-to-hand combos offer brute force moves, and road signs and similar objects can bash additional heads. Vehicles are generally plentiful, and Arnie can leap from one ride to another with ease as he blasts the pesky machines. Control isn't bad, though it takes a few minutes to get used to Ahnuld's sloth as he fires while walking. But the targeting is easy to use, and the game is fairly responsive.

Whoa. Terminator kills Terminator. This is so meta.

I said drive!

In chase mode, Arnie is sometimes driving, and sometimes merely along for the ride. Either way, there are varying degrees of control over a given vehicle, often a few 'alternate' pathways, and many more things to shoot. There's often a boss battle feel to the chase levels, as when Arnie is firing at a rabidly pursuing T-X as John Conner handles the wheel. The goal is to knock the T-X back long enough to jump onto the hook truck she's piloting, where the exposed driver's box is vulnerable until the deadly blonde gets back on her feet. Then it's lather, rinse, repeat. Learning patterns is the dominant goal here.

There are a couple of extra moves. You can use the Terminator's classic red 'scan vision' mode to temporarily improve accuracy and damage. Upgrades (purchased with 'terabytes' gathered from foes) can improve the duration of the scan, and features such as the damage bonus incurred while using the system. And Paradigm has taken a cue from EA's last Bond title, including a few 'Terminator moments'. At certain points, a circular grey icon may appear -- a well-time button press generates a nice cutscene of Arnie action and a small gameplay advantage. I particularly liked the bit where he used a power wire as a zipline with one hand while dangling his pickup from the other.